THIS week in Down Memory Lane we reflect on Orsett Show. I look back at the 1950 show reports in the Essex and Thurrock Gazette incorporating the Grays and Tilbury Gazette, priced at only 2p!

The report of the 44th show included facts on visitors and entries to the show, attended by 8,000 people in about 590 cars and 575 mixed cycles and motor bikes.

The entries into this year’s show was 1,000 horticultural, 160 horses, 94 cattle, 67 pigs, 156 entries to the agricultural section and 378 in the fur and feather sections! The special arena event was a daring motorcycle display of acrobatics by the royal Corps of Signals.

Further features of the show were the arrival of the Essex Union Foxhounds and the music of the Grays Temperance Silver Prize Band kept the crowds entertained. The Orsett Show committee was once again indebted to Sir Francis Whitmore, of Orsett Hall, for providing the venue, in the grounds behind the hall.

My featured photograph is of the Grand Parade of prize winners. The agricultural show brought out the best in farming techniques and I note some of the local farmers and farms who won in various categories – Mr W O Watt, Heath Place Farm, Orsett Fruit Farm, G Squire, Hassingbrook Hall, Stanford-le-Hope, Mr F J Ockendon, Mr C H Cole & Sons, Mill House, West Tilbury, Mr D F Jessop, Biggin Farm, Chadwell St Mary, Mr P N Gotts, Stone Hall, Bulphan, Mr N P Smith, Broadhope Farm, Stanford-le-Hope, Mr T Crawford, Stifford Clays Farm, North Stifford, Mr E Bedell, Barnards Farm, East Horndon, Mr J Pinkerton, Wick Place, Bulphan. I hope many readers of Down Memory Lane will visit our Orsett Show heritage tent to see how so many volunteer groups in Thurrock are trying to record, preserve and make public our unique heritage.